Quote
"If I werent a Jew (in the sense in which I use the word) then I wouldnt be an artist, or at least not the one I am now."
Marc ChagallOnly the great distance that separates Paris from my native town preve — Marc Chagall
"Only the great distance that separates Paris from my native town prevented me from going back.. .It was the Louvre that put end to all these hesitations. When I walked around the circular Veronese room and the rooms that the works of Manet, Delacroix and Courbet are in, I desired nothing more. In my imagination Russia [where Chagall was born] took the form of a basket suspended from a parachute. The deflated pear of the balloon was hanging down, growing cold and descending slowly in the course of the years. This was how Russian art appeared to me, or something of the sort.. .It was as if Russian art had been fatally condemned to remain in the wake of the West. (a later quote on his first arrival in Paris, 1910)"
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
author34 quotes
Marc Chagall was a Russian and French artist of Jewish ancestry. An early modernist, he was associated with the École de Paris, as well as several major artistic styles and created works in a wide range of artistic formats, including painting, drawings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints.
More by Marc Chagall
View all →Marc ChagallQuote
"Now at least artists have the upper hand in the town (Vitebsk). They get totally engrossed in their disputes about art (between constructivists and suprematists), I am utterly exhausted and dream of abroad.. .After all, there is no more suitable place for artists to be (for me, at least) than at the easel, and I dream of being able to devote myself exclusively to my pictures. Of course, little by little one paints something, but its not the real thing. (Chagall was director of the Art School of Vitebsk, including many conflicts)"
Marc ChagallQuote
"My works are dear to me, each in its own way, I shall have to answer for them on the Day of Judgement. God alone knows whether I shall ever see them again. Quite apart from the money which I was going to receive for their sale there (exhibition in Gallery Der Sturm, Berlin June-July, 1914) and it is no small sum.."
Marc ChagallQuote
"The sun has only ever shone for me in France (it certainly did that!). I have got used to beating the streets of Paris, happy beyond words dreaming of a life 125 years long - with the Louvre radiant in the distance. (Chagall couldnt go back to Paris because of the outbreak of the first World War in 1914). Having ended up in the Russian provinces, >."
Marc ChagallQuote
"Or is all this fuss actually important for >? Oh, no, never. If things only ever originated as a result of such competition (between subject- and subjectless art) , it wouldnt be worth living among them, like an accidental, capricious toy. Clearly there is a greater, a more serene and more modest power, but we are either too lazy to live by its laws, or we have no time, or it "hurts too much"."
Marc ChagallQuote
"For me, Christ has always symbolized the true type of the Jewish martyr. That is how I understood him in 1908 when I used this figure for the first time.. .It was under the influence of the pogroms. Then I painted and drew him in pictures about ghettos, surrounded by Jewish troubles, by Jewish mothers, running terrified with little children in their arms."
Marc Chagall